Yu-Run Lin

Yu-Run Lin is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Computing and Information, holding secondary appointments in the Political Science and Computer Science departments. He serves as Research & Academic Director at the Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security (Pitt Cyber). His research focuses on computational social science, social/political networks, and visual analytics for network data, with applications in disaster response, misinformation detection, and public algorithm accountability. He leads the PICSO Lab and has contributed to over 100 publications across top venues like ICWSM, WWW, and IEEE Transactions. Key awards include the Best Paper Award (2020) and Honorable Mention (VAST 2014).

Education: PhD in Informatics, Arizona State University (2010). Postdoctoral training at Harvard University and Northeastern University.

Research Interests: Lin investigates how groups react to social/political events using social media, cellphone data, and mixed methods. His work bridges computational methods with social theory to understand network dynamics, algorithmic fairness, and crisis communication. Recent projects include modeling food insecurity, analyzing conspiratorial narratives, and developing tools like FairSight and TribalGram.

Grants & Awards: NSF-funded work on digital accountability of public officials, grants for opioid overdose forecasting (CASTNet), and support from the KDD Humanitarian Mapping Workshop. Awards include the 2020 Best Paper Award and multiple conference recognitions.

Labs & Teams: Directs the PICSO Lab, collaborating on AI ethics, disaster analytics, and computational social science. Engages with interdisciplinary teams in Pitt Cyber and the Collaboratory Against Hate.